


And There ain't No Glory in the West

by MS_Mayhem



Series: Still Neither One of Us has Died [1]
Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: A little angst, Alex Rider paints because I said so, Alex's knack for chaos and destruction, Arson, Christianity, Coffee Shops, Cults, Domestic, Dumpster Cats, Established Relationship, Fluff, Ghost Towns, Historical Inaccuracy, Horses, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Christian Guilt, M/M, Minor Injuries, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Yassen Gregorovich is an Iced Coffee Gay, also a bunch of other inaccuracies, as a treat, probably, this is all over the place im sorry, unnecessary backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:28:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29312622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MS_Mayhem/pseuds/MS_Mayhem
Summary: When searching for Alex Rider, the best place to start is the biggest fire you can find.
Relationships: Yassen Gregorovich/Alex Rider
Series: Still Neither One of Us has Died [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2156292
Comments: 6
Kudos: 22





	And There ain't No Glory in the West

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Orville Peck  
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction using character from the Alex Rider series, which belongs to Anthony Horowitz. I do not claim ownership over the characters or the world of Alex Rider.
> 
> This has not been proof read, but at least I held back on the bad cowboy puns.
> 
> Yeehaw!

In the early 1860s, Robert William Hancock discovered gold in Arizona. At least, that’s how the story went. It was, in fact, the men that worked for him that discovered the gold, but it mattered little. In the end, it was Hancock that opened the Hancock Mine, and founded Hancock city, to accommodate the wave of labourers that rushed to work the mine, desperate for a profit. It was, of course, Robert Hancock that made the most profit, as he loosely oversaw the progress in the mines from his estate in Louisiana. 

Twice a year, Hancock would travel from Louisiana to Arizona via railway, claiming the last three cars of the train. One of them held his luggage, one of them was for the staff, and the third and most luxurious one, was for Hancock and his family. 

He demanded his wife and their five children -- all of them boys -- came with him when he went on his business trips. His boys came to see how their father conducted business, and to learn a thing or two. The wife came, so Hancock could keep an eye on her. He was a controlling man.

It was during one of those trips, that Hancock and his entire family was killed. The killers could easily be overlooked for a group of bandits, out for money and the bloodshed that always came with a train robbery, if not for the fact that they unhooked the last train car only, and let the rest of the train speed off.

The group of bandits, it turned out, was made up entirely out of women, who had either tied back their hair, or cut it short, and had dressed up in men’s clothing. Their husbands and sons had all been killed in a large mining accident, and the way that Hancock had handled the situation was less than satisfactory. The women had killed Hancock’s sons and wife first; each one of them shot in the back of the head while they knelt and sobbed.

“Now you know what it feels like to have your family ripped from you!” The leader -- a sturdy woman, with greying brown hair, and sun roughened skin -- had snarled bitterly, an axe in her work-worn hands. 

It only took her one swing to sever Robert William Hancock’s snot-and-tear covered head from his fat body, but there was no real victory. They knew there would not be one. They did not celebrate or jeer, they did not even pick up the ugly head of Hancock. Instead, they merely spoke a prayer for their own families, and the dead bodies that lay crumpled at their feet, and made their way back to that awful town, named after an awful man, that had taken so many lives -- whether through mining accidents, disease, famine, or the chronic poverty that reigned throughout Hancock City. 

They had been caught, of course; they had obvious motive, and Hancock had been important and wealthy, the Hancock City sheriff had been employed by him personally. The group of women were sentenced to death, and were hung from a tree half a day’s ride outside Hancock city.

Not one of them showed any fear, and they spoke one last prayer together, ready to join their husbands and sons in the afterlife. The tree had been known as the hanging tree. 

Only a handful of years later, the mine dried up. In those years, it had taken countless lives, and life in Hancock city had taken even more. Those that did not move someplace else, slowly wasted away, until there was nothing left but decrepit buildings, and abandoned mine, and the memory of death. 

Hancock City, had been, in every sense of the word, a ghost town. 

That was, until the land was bought by James Isaac Michael McCready, and was repaired enough to house the next wave of lost souls. Updates and upgrades were made, the most prominent of which were the security measures. A tall fence -- electrified and topped with razor wire, armed guards, watchtowers, a bunker, and a large weapons depot. 

McCready was, in his own bizarre way, a charming man. He was intelligent, manipulative, and dangerous. But all this was overshadowed by his complete insanity. Jim -- as his flock of devoted followers called him -- was a fundamentalist christian, who took his ideas to the extreme, and twisted them to fit the lifestyle his own father had beaten into him.

In 1972, Jim McCready formed the Holiest Church of Saint John the Evangelist, and, as time went on, his congregation grew, and his preaching got more extreme. The Holiest Church of Saint John the Evangelist was, in fact, a cult. McCready had centred his beliefs around the Book of Revelation, and was preparing for the apocalypse spiritually, as well as physically. The cult was amounting large amounts of weapons in their compound, and trained their male members thoroughly. They adhered strictly to the word of the Bible -- or, rather, McCready’s interpretation of it.

It did not take long for the authorities to get wind of McCready’s operation, but there was little they could do. The compound was well-fortified, and there were women and children -- potential hostages. Not to mention, that many of the local authorities sympathised with McCready, seeing him as a good christian. 

It mattered little why, precisely, nobody did anything about the growing cult. In the end, the Church of Saint John was left to fester, until, finally, two events transpired in a short period of time, that forced the foreig intelligence service to step in. 

First, a satellite image showed Joanne Hall, the wayward daughter of a prominent businessman (and, perhaps, more importantly, an old friend of Alan Blunt), who had disappeared two years prior, now standing at the centre of the Hancock Compound, in the late stages of pregnancy, with another toddler balanced on her hip, and a large bruise blossomed over her face. 

Then, there was the report of the Church of Saint John acquiring an extraordinarily large amount of explosives from a supplier in Albania, and alarms were raised. 

McCready’s case was taken from a federal level, to an international one, and the CIA joined forces with the MI6, to destroy the cult. 

The attack was planned entirely around the departure of the women and children, accompanied by a group of armed men, who went on an annual religious trip that lasted a week. There was an FBI agent, who had infiltrated the cult, a tracker concealed in her tooth. 

The trips always went to a new, unknown, destination, and it was impossible to predict where the next one would go. And thanks to SSA Fisher, they would not have to. All they had to do was follow the signal.

It was easy to pick off the armed men, and rescue the hostages, though, their recovery would be less easy.

They did, however, have another man -- or rather, another _boy_ \-- in the midst of the cult. This boy was, of course, Alex Rider.

Alex had never been religious, and worked to memorise the bible in preparation for his assignment; it was tedious, but easy enough. The difficult part was psychologically, for Alex to get into the right headspace. He had to become someone he despised, with bigoted ideals and opinions. It took a lot of work, but he knew it was the only option. 

Young boys were easy prey for cults; they were impressionable and angry. Alex had been picked off the street with words that were not quite charming, and promised that made Alex want to wretch. 

He had spent two weeks in the cult, learning as much as he could. The two weeks were grueling, and, as much as Alex hated to admit it, they took a toll on his mind. He was constantly battered with the sermons of McCready, his twisted interpretations of the bible, and worst of all, he was forced to agree. 

Repenting was a big topic, and Alex found it ironic. It was some of the things the cult expected him to do, and thus made him do, that Alex knew he would have to repent over for the rest of his life. 

He spoke vulgarly, full of slurs and prejudice, he beat women and children with a heavy belt. Worst of all, he was forced to impregnate one of the women. It was awkward, and Alex had to resort to the training he had gotten to resist torture to get through it. The woman had cried, in pain or humiliation he did not know, and Alex wanted to do nothing more than stop. But he couldn’t, he was surrounded by a group of men, who were watching keenly, jeering and laughing.

Alex had prayed for the first time in his life that night, crying for forgiveness.

Four days later, the Hancock Compound was on fire. 

There had been a large explosion that had shook the entire mountain that the mine was built into, and flames soon followed. Hancock City was largely built of wood, and the dry desert sun helped little to reduce the flammability. The gate had been locked securely, and the men in the facility had nowhere to go. Screams mingled with the crashing of breaking wood. 

A man -- his entire being on fire -- jumped from one of the burning guard towers, to the other side of the fence, rolling around desperately in the dust. He had managed to extinguish the fire, but was picked off by a single bullet, shot by a Steyr SSG 69 bolt-action sniper rifle, outfitted with a sound suppressor. The silencer was for the benefit of the horse that stood a good distance away from the burning compound. 

Yassen Gregorovich lowered the rifle. He had seen all he needed to see, and the guard towers had collapsed into the inferno. There was no chance of escape. 

It was by complete chance that Yassen was here now. He was on a different assignment, a kill he had already made. It was by complete chance that they were both here, in the Arizona desert, but, in the end, their fates seemed to be twisted together.

Yassen glanced once more at the compound, smiling to himself. This was, without a doubt, the work of one Alex Rider. Then, he set off, in search of the boy, who had, undoubtedly, run off into the desert on his own. 

It took a while to find Alex’s tracks, marked by blood. It was the noise of the explosion that had first drawn Yassen’s attention, and Alex not only had a head start, but also many directions to go. 

Still, once Yassen had seen the first hints of a trail, it was easy to catch up. He was on horse, and Alex was not only on foot, but also injured. He led his horse in a trot, following the tracks through the desert.

Going on horseback was certainly a _choice,_ but Yassen knew that the off-road vehicles needed to navigate the rough desert terrain were loud and large, and would have drawn unwanted attention. Yassen had not even considered going by foot. It was suicide.

Instead, he had purchased a horse from a local rancher: a sorrel American Azteca gelding, named Whiskey. Yassen hadn’t bothered to change the horse’s name, even if he found it ridiculous. 

When Yassen saw the unmistakable figure of Alex in the distance, limping and most definitely dehydrated, he sped up to a fast canter, his eyes locked on his target.

Alex spun around as he heard the thunder of hooves, confused and slightly petulant. He looked like he was about to complain that it wasn’t _fair,_ that he was caught by McCready’s men, when he stopped at the odd man.

Alex was sure he had travelled back in time, as the figure mounted on the horse was wearing a large cowboy hat, and a duster coat, with a scarf concealing his face. 

The rider stopped close to him, and pulled down the scarf, and Alex could barely make out the face under the heavy shadow cast by the wide brim of the hat.

“Yassen!” Alex smiled in recognition.

“Hello Alex.” Yassen smiled back, and brought down a gloved hand in invitation.

Alex got on the horse with a pained grunt. He was in a bad state. He was sunburnt and dehydrated. There were burns down one arm, and there was a bloodied make-shift bandage around a thigh. His lips were cracked, and his skin was beginning to blister from the sun exposure. Alex was only wearing a t-shirt, a pair of singed jeans, and boots. 

Yassen passed him a bottle of water, ordering him to drink before the midday sun killed him. While Alex greedily gulped down the water, Yassen unwound his thin scarf, and handed it to Alex, instructing him to wrap it around his head. Yassen pulled out a thin poncho from a saddle-bag, and handed it to Alex as well.

Then, they rode.

“How did you find me?” Alex asked over the sound of hooves, his arms wrapped securely around Yassen’s waist.

“An alarm goes off whenever you get yourself into trouble.” Yassen deadpanned. “It’s rather annoying actually.”

Alex bit him -- harshly -- in the shoulder. Then spat as the taste of the duster coat hit him. Yassen laughed softly.

“There was an explosion and an entire town was on fire. That sort of destruction had to have been your work.” Yassen explained, bringing down a hand to gently squeeze Alex’s uninjured hand.

“And I take it you saw the explosion all the way from Europe?” Alex linked his fingers through Yassen’s.

“No. There was a space programme that needed to be stopped.” Yassen explained. “I would’ve taken you, but you were busy. You and your unparalleled talent for complete and utter destruction would have come in useful.”

Alex snorted and squeezed his arms a little tighter around Yassen. “I’m pretty sure Blunt would throw a fit if I started doing freelance work. Especially with _you_ of all people.”

“Hey, I work under the law now.” Yassen protested, before adding, after Alex had glared at him: “Mostly.”

They came to rest underneath a tree, with large, sprawling branches. It was the hanging tree. The sky was already dark, and Yassen built a small campfire from a few smaller branches from the tree. They were sun-dried and burnt well.  
  
Whiskey was tied to the tree, and Yassen even had a small one-man tent that he set up. They ate in the soft light of the flames, and Yassen patched up Alex’s leg and arm, while Alex told him all about the cult, and his experience there. 

Once Yassen was done wrapping the bandages, Alex climbed into his lap, his legs on either side of Yassen’s waist.

“I missed you, Yas.” Alex softly bit into his jaw, rough with stubble. 

“I missed you too.” Yassen caught him in a soft kiss

Alex tried to deepen the kiss, and when Yassen did not let him, Alex bit the older man’s lip in protest, before softly sucking the blood off in apology. 

“Yassen, I need you to make me repent, for the things I’ve done in that place.” Alex whispered, his voice muffled in Yassen’s shoulder.

Yassen knew what he meant, and, with a soft kiss to his forehead, he ordered the boy to strip, while Yassen mentally worked out his plans for the night. He would start with his belt.

Afterwards, they lay cramped in the one-man tent. Alex was half atop of Yassen, too weak to move, and his mind wonderfully placated. 

“I love you.” He mumbled softly into the pale skin of Yassen’s chest, soft fingers tracing the scar running down the centre of it. 

“I love you too, little one.” Yassen ran soft fingers through the tousled blond strands of Alex’s hair. 

The next day, they continued east, although Alex complained the entire time. He did not like horse riding in the first place, and doing so sore from the rough treatment Yassen had given him the night before was awful.

But Yassen let him complain, only interrupting with occasional reassurances that he loved Alex very dearly after the brat claimed he hated Yassen in a drawn out whine. 

They arrived at a small town, where they made contact, and waited for extraction. Yassen had, coincidentally, been hired by the CIA to disrupt the space programme, and the majority of the field agents involved in the McCready case were CIA. 

They were airlifted to a military base via helicopter, and Alex received some more medical treatment, although he refused to take his jeans off. They were debriefed separately, but joined up again afterwards. They had each been given their own rooms, but they ended up blatantly sharing a room. They had spent too much time apart already, and Yassen had missed the warm body clinging to him while he read.

Two days later, they flew back to England in the first class cabin that Lufthansa offered. Despite Alex’s attempts, they did not fuck on the plane. Yassen explained it was improper, and they had both already joined the mile high club -- Yassen when he was twenty-two with another SCORPIA agent, and Alex a year back in Yassen’s own jet. 

Alex was debriefed a second time, by Mr Blunt and Ms Jones, while Yassen waited in the lobby of the Royal and General Bank. He had replaced his leather duster with a black wool topcoat -- expensive and sleek. England was cold, this time of year, even more so compared to the heat of the Arizona desert.

Alex came out of the lift with a scowl on his face, as was usual after most interactions with the head of the MI6, but it was replaced with a smile when he spotted Yassen.

The man put down the finance magazine he was flipping through, and greeted Alex with a soft kiss. 

“Coffee?” Yassen suggested, and Alex agreed, as they made their way out of the bank, into the cold London streets. They stopped at a small coffee shop. It was a cozy little place, independent from the chains that ran the streets of London. They frequented it, even though Yassen knew it was dangerous to have such habits. Still, the baristas were kind and funny, and the coffee was exceptional. 

Fish was in zir last year of uni, studying computer science. Ze had bright blue hair, braided up into a large frohawk and too many pins on zir apron. Fish smiled as zir favourite customers walked in. The fact that they were a couple was obvious from the way they walked arm in arm, even if their looks contrasted each other.

One of the men was dressed in an expensive overcoat, a black cashmere turtleneck, black slacks, and black wingtip boots. The other one was wearing baggy jeans, cuffed over a worn pair of converse, with a bright red hoodie and an oversized denim jacket.

“Hey, welcome back!” The barista greeted, already picking out two large cups. “It’s been a while, how are you two doing? Can I get you the usual?”

“Yeah we just got back from a trip to Arizona.” The younger of the two -- Alex -- he had told zir the first time they met, the name written on the compostable takeaway cups, spoke with a toothy smile. “Also yes, it’ll be the usual.”

“Ooo. Good trip?” Fish laughed, and began jotting their order down onto the colourful cups, before passing them along to the other barista, Grace. 

“It was alright. I got a little sunburnt though.” Alex downplayed the severe sun exposure. 

“Ouch.” Fish laughed, and tapped the order into the register. 

Yassen paid, as he always did, on his own insistence, leaving a generous tip -- a habit that Fish and the other staff at the café greatly appreciated.

They collected their order from Grace, a tall woman with long blonde hair and a patchwork sleeve made of delicate floral tattoos. She spoke protection spells into the drinks of the regulars she liked, and the two drinks -- one of them an iced cold brew, black with two slices of lemon, the other one a cinnamon mocha with extra whipped cream -- each received a small spell. 

They decided to walk home. It was a nice day, crisp and sunny, and the mocha warmed Alex up against the icy air. They had gotten a place together in South Kensington. Neither of them wanted to live in the house in Chelsea, there were too many ghosts, but Alex was hesitant to move too far away from the area he grew up in. Yassen liked to live expensively, and they had found a lovely townhouse in Kensington. 

They walked by Buckingham Palace, staying behind the gaggle of tourists, and, as was usual for them, they came up with a new, hypothetical plan of breaking in. It was a game they played and loved, and occasionally, they would report their findings to the MI6, and security would be tightened. Mostly though, they did not report back.

Waiting at home for them were Kazimir and Misha, the two cats that Alex had found in a dumpster and insisted they keep. Yassen liked to consider himself a man with near infallible self-control, but when Alex looked at him with pleading eyes, completely soaked through, with two equally wet kittens in his arms, Yassen had found it impossible to say no. At least Yassen got to name the cats. 

Yassen had some work to do, and, as was usual, Misha joined him, curling up on the desk, and occasionally climbing onto the man’s shoulders or lap. Misha had thick fur, and shed a lot, it was only lucky that he had a black coat. 

Alex busied himself with the beginnings of an oil painting -- a hobby he had taken up after Yassen kept badgering him about recreation and mellow productivity as a coping mechanism for their profession. He laid out the basic shadows and shapes of the Arizona desert onto the large canvas, plotting in the Hanging Tree as well. 

Their home was filled with Alex’s paintings, and he had his own studio in the attic. Alex liked to paint the places his missions took him. It was good exercise for his memory and attention to details, and embracing the unique beauty of the places was therapeutic. Another beloved source material for Alex were their cats, and Yassen, although he preferred capturing the latter in pencil, ink, or charcoal in the long row of filled sketchbooks that covered two shelves of the unit he had set up in his studio. 

Yassen cooked that evening, Osso Buco with saffron-scented risotto and zucchini, paired with a Lombard red wine. Yassen liked to pair a wine that came from the same region as the food. Alex did not quite understand how it worked, but Yassen had, objectively, immaculate taste, and Alex was fine with following whatever the man did.

Cooking and baking were some of the recreational activities that Yassen enjoyed, and Alex reaped the benefits, eating delightful feasts most days they were both at home, and being surprised by the beautiful confections Yassen made. When Yassen baked, Alex liked to sit in the kitchen with him, perched on a counter, and scooping left over batter from bowls, sucking it off his fingers. 

After dinner, they curled up for a movie. Alex would stretch out across the couch, sitting up against Yassen. Misha would sit on Alex’s lap, purring contently, while Kazimir claimed an armchair in the far corner of the room. Though, halfway throughout the movie, Kazimir would always magically end up on Yassen’s free leg.

They watched an old western, at the insistence of Alex, who spent half the movie making jokes about the way Yassen had dressed up in the desert.

Tomorrow, Alex would see his therapist, and tell her about the cult, and the things he did and saw, and when he returned home, eyes red and puffy, Yassen would fold him into his arms and pepper him with soft kisses and softer words, and then he would bake something, letting Alex try everything along the way, licking it off of Yassen’s own fingers, while one of Alex’s many playlists crooned softly in the background. 

“Were you religious growing up?” Alex asked that night, curled against Yassen’s side, and playing with the soft blond hair that covered his chest.

“Not really. There was a church in Estrov, and we went, but I don’t think I ever was religious, not really.” Yassen explained, pulling Alex a little closer, before he continued unprompted. It was a thing he found himself doing a lot around Alex.

“It’s good, I suppose. If I had been religious, I think everything would have been worse. Either I would have lost my faith, or been so consumed by guilt and despair.” 

Alex hummed softly in consideration. 

“Are you okay, Alex?” Yassen asked, turning the boy's face so he could meet his eyes.

“No.” Alex admitted. 

A year ago, he would not have done so, but together, he and Yassen had worked hard to get to the point where Alex could admit when he was not well, and even harder to get Alex to the point where he could ask for help. They were still working on that.

“But I will be.”

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy! I hope you enjoyed this!
> 
> P.S. I stole the food Yassen cooks from Hannibal


End file.
